Vladimir Putin has been dealt yet another brutal blow as Ukraine’s drone bombardment continues.
His country has been blitzed by Kyiv’s drones over the summer, flipping the focus of the war onto the Russian home front and piling pressure on the autocrat and his people in a manner not seen since the war started in 2022.
It continued on Tuesday as drones struck the Afipsky Refinery in the territory of Krasnodar Krai in the southwest of the country for the fifth time, with regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev writing on Telegram—a popular social media platform in Russia—that fires had broken out in the region.
“At least 10 private homes were damaged,” he said, according to the Kyiv Post. “A fire broke out in one of them. The fire also broke out on the premises of an oil refinery. Firefighters and emergency services are currently working at the scene.”
The Afipsky Refinery can process 7.9 million tons of crude oil a year and is one of the largest in southern Russia.
He added that Afipskaya railway station was also damaged when drone debris fell on it.
Ukraine has also confirmed it had hit the refinery, with its General Staff writing in a Telegram post of its own: “A fire has been confirmed on the territory of the enterprise. The extent of the damage is being clarified. Work on key enemy facilities is ongoing.”
It came as a separate attack damaged a pair of U-272 gas separation units at the Astrakhan Gas Processing Plant in the Astrakhan region early Monday. It is part of oil titan Gazprom’s network.
Ukraine says that its gas products are used by Russia’s armed forces and sulfur outputs are used in explosives.
Across several regions, the Russian defense ministry said it had destroyed 148 targets in the air.
Attacks were also reported in the Rostov region, with Novoshakhtinsk Oil Refinery among the targets, according to Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+.
The attacks have taken Russian refining to its lowest level since 2002, with the Moscow Times reporting that 70 such strikes have been carried out this year, leaving facilities at Permnefteorgsintez, Orsknefteorgsintez, Zapsibneftekhim, Saratov, and Volgograd out of action.
Putin’s summer crisis has left the nation beleaguered, with lengthy lines at gas stations spotted nationwide, while the need to send more bodies to the front line has put pressure on families across the country and the Kremlin.
Oil and gas form the spine of Russia’s economy, which has now been put out of joint by the relentless campaign from Ukraine.
Kyiv has also targeted e-commerce facilities across Russia, including the nation’s equivalent of Amazon, Wildberries.
The country’s second-biggest retailer, Ozon, was also hit four times on Monday, bringing the total number of strikes against the firm to six since Saturday.
